


Good Morning

by shittershutter



Category: Dunkirk (2017)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-11
Updated: 2018-04-11
Packaged: 2019-04-21 14:19:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14286762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shittershutter/pseuds/shittershutter
Summary: Gibson loses his voice for a week after that encounter, and Tommy's just floored by how he misses it when it's gone completely.The older man is not the chattiest on his good days, but god the absence of the short bursts of words he communicates with, the hmms and the ahhs is deafening.





	Good Morning

**Author's Note:**

> * Mentions of PTSD
> 
> * Unbetad, sorry.

Tommy does not recognize the man who calls Gibson by the name in the middle of the street on one winter morning. Tall and wiry he is, dressed in well-worn clothes, old but clean. The type you won’t invite into your house but won’t run from, either. 

“… we thought you were dead,” the man goes on, and Tommy curses under his breath hoping the harshness will dissolve in the steam that leaves his mouth. 

The man takes a step forward, and in perfect synchronicity, Gibson takes a step back. A big one. When Tommy turns to look at him, he is pretty far away from that single move.

The man pats his chest with both hands and says his own name with enthusiasm Tommy doesn't share at all. Then the years follow, in chronological order: 1942, the coldest year in existence; 1943 when the food got so scarce that the men in the barracks would drop like flies left and right; 1944, the year of the firing squads…

“We thought he was a spy at first,” the man tells Tommy after he notices his references don’t really hit the intended target. “Thought he cut his tongue out.”

He goes on about how the tongue turned out to be in place and they eventually let it go because even if the Germans couldn’t make the boy talk — and by god did they have their ways — nobody could. 

“They probably decided to leave him alone to die eventually, when that terrible cough got really bad… Gibson? Where the hell have you gone?” It's somewhat rhetorical, but the man takes another step forward. 

Tommy throws his hand out instinctively then as people continue to flow around them in the middle of a busy street. He plants his feet wide, so he doesn’t get knocked over pathetically if the man charges at them. 

“He doesn’t want to talk to you.”

The reaction on the man's face is genuine confusion, no anger, no aggression to speak of. 

"... and you, he talks to you?!”

The hair on the back of Tommy's head is still damp after Gibson has washed it cradling his skull in his hands like the most delicate thing he's ever held. And he hummed a melody Tommy's never heard before and kissed the top of his head when he was done. 

Then Tommy returned the favor and cut Gibson's unruly hair, the waves of it always so forgiving to the younger man's trembling hands as they curl back up to smooth over the unevenness. 

He still has a few of Gibson's hairs, tiny like the eyelashes, clinging to his hands reminding him that the morning happened and it was good while the man keeps talking as each of his words is pushing Gibson deeper and deeper into himself where Tommy can't follow. 

Then Gibson suddenly turns around and starts walking away in large strides Tommy can never keep up with. He calls out after him for a few times and if he wants to follow he needs to do so right now, before the distance between them becomes critical, but then there is a man from Gibson’s past, the darkest part of it Tommy’s had only the glimpses of. He can be helpful. Even though Tommy’s strongest instinct is to punch him in the face for inserting himself so violently into the delicate balance of Gibson’s sanity.

“What is your name?” Tommy hisses, patting his pockets. The urge to go after Gibson is so strong it’s tearing him in half. He digs his heels in, tightens his jaw, fishing for the pen. He picks a wrong hand for that in a hassle, and his stump of a finger is getting in the way and time, the precious time is slipping away just like the damn pen does, and…

Tommy takes a deep breath, blinking, hooks the pen with his trembling digits, then pushes his sleeve up to the elbow and stretches his forearm out to the man. 

“Here. Just write it down along with the address or a phone number; anything he can find you by. I can’t promise anything but maybe…”

The man just blinks at him, gaze alternating between the retreating Gibson’s back and Tommy’s pale hand. It’s so empty behind his eyes like he’s retreated somewhere while still leaving the lights on and this emptiness is so familiar Tommy wants to scream for all three of them. 

“Don’t do this to me, mate,” Tommy whines with pure exhaustion. “Took him years to answer back, I don’t have the time.”

He takes a deep breath and in front of a complete stranger adds something he’s never dared to utter out loud before: “I’m so fucking tired.” 

The agonizingly long seconds tick by until the man focuses his eyes on Tommy’s limb with a pen and seeing it, deeply scarred and a bit shaky, brings him back somewhat, makes him nod in recognition. 

He scribbles the name and a number so enthusiastically he breaks Tommy’s skin in places like he tries to tattoo the information on him but the younger man doesn’t even flinch. His entire leg is buzzing already with tiny currents of pain running through as he anticipates the dash in Gibson’s direction he’s about to make. 

He’ll put it into the folder of Gibson’s medical records, that’s the plan. The stack of paper he doesn’t go near because of the photo it has glued onto the first page. The blurry snapshot of Gibson’s face for identification purposes, even though it’d be nearly impossible to identify him by it now. Hollowed cheeks, shaved head, stained pillow as a background and somebody else’s hand in the frame under Gibson’s jaw to keep his head upright. 

He can see how strained Gibson's neck is, how he fights to hide his face and he can't win even that pathetic battle. 

Tommy bawls for an hour the first time he sees the picture, unable to meet that old Gibson’s eyes, huge and terrified. As soon as the doctor visits are done for he gives the damn folder to the older man in case he ever wants to revisit what was done to him. 

Their new friend will fit right in.

He forgets his pen, and the man doesn’t attempt to return it as he starts hobbling through the crowd following Gibson’s cooling trail.

* * * 

He catches up with Gibson in the dark staircase right next to their door. The man stands there, motionless, back to the wall but he lets Tommy into his personal space, lets him unbutton his coat.

Like a wounded animal, he exposes the most vulnerable part of himself for Tommy to see, to touch in hope there will be no deadly blow to follow. 

The heart inside those ribs beats so quickly, so loudly it echoes from every bone Tommy counts as he slides his hands up and down the man's sides, his touch feather-light, with no pressure at all. 

"Shhhhhh," Tommy soothes instead of attacking him with a thousand words and kisses the sound into the man's neck and his convulsing throat. 

* * * 

Gibson loses his voice for a week after that encounter, and Tommy's just floored by how he misses it when it's gone completely.

The older man is not the chattiest on his good days, but god the absence of the short bursts of words he communicates with, the hmms and the ahhs is deafening. 

A barking cough that appears instead -- this is how Tommy knows Gibson is as shocked as he is and he tries, he tortures his throat to get a peep out, a hum, anything -- sounds like a gun going off in their tiny apartment. 

Tommy wallows and drinks for the first few days, going as far as bursting into tears in front of Alex like in the good old days when the victory fireworks would reduce him into a hysterical barely human creature. And his friend pats his pockets looking for a spare tissue, but there is none because it has been years since it was required. 

So he presents Tommy's face to the barmaid instead, and she just plunges it into her greasy apron while Alex pats his back until he is out of sobs. 

"To staying alive," Alex toasts. 

Seriously, Tommy thinks then, while coughing out all the snot he has swallowed. It's all building from the ground up once he's out of the trenches. Building atop of the swamp, fact, but as long as they are above the ground, they can do it all over again. 

* * * 

Gibson is hiding from him in the bathroom -- the trail of dirty footprints is a dead giveaway -- and Tommy in his newfound humility is contemplating to give the man his privacy. But there are a few small drops of blood among the dirt, so a quick look won't hurt, he figures. 

He sees the hair, the knees, and the feet, one of them still with the boot on, one bare as the man sits on the floor right in front of him, his head down. 

What he does have is a split lip, swollen and heavy, and a blush that comes through the variety of bruises on his cheeks. It's that shame that slices Tommy's chest open making him wince. 

"How am I supposed to kiss you now, huh?" he whispers lowering himself down to the floor, bending the wrong knee with the speed he knows he'll regret. 

"Oh. Found the spot," his neck cracks as he angles his head to push the mouth against Gibson's upper lip. It's electric, that touch, through the numbness and ache that hover above them its power is undeniable no matter what. 

"Did you win?"

Gibson huffs and shows him his hands, busted knuckles and blood under the nails. He is breathing deeply, evenly, like he wouldn't if his ribs were bothering him. 

Tommy still thinks they should be getting drunk about this together, not separately but he understands there is anger behind the anguish as well and Gibson doesn't want him to be on the receiving end of it. 

He wonders if some poor sod got in Gibson's way or if, in a much more preferable but less realistic scenario, he's got into the folder, found the man's name and the phone and the meeting went either very right or very wrong, depending on how you look at it. 

Calling would require Gibson to talk, though, and he decidedly does not. 

Tommy is drunk out of his mind, but he pats the man down to the best of his ability praying that if there is a knife sticking out of Gibson somewhere, he'd at least notice that. Runs his hand through his hair to paw around the scalp looking for damage. 

Then he just stares, swaying slightly, and he hopes that tiny part of him that always refused to accept Gibson was dead and gone, taken by the water, will feed him the right words to say. 

He cannot say "it'll come back" or "it's going to be okay," because it's banal and it has been said for a million times before. Gibson knows. 

Tommy lets the dizziness overcome him as he leans forward, hugging Gibson's knees, digging his forehead into them. 

"You didn't fail me. Or yourself, or whoever else you think you might have."

He straightens up to appear bigger, stronger, more reassuring. Also, because his leg demands it now, spasming from the toes to the hip. And he still is bony and pathetic, slave to his own limb's demands for years, but his winter coat is padded, so maybe it'll help to create the illusion.

* * * 

Tommy never tells Gibson about the dreams he has back in his darkest years when the cold is still so deep in his bones as the taste of the rotting ground in his mouth. The dirtiest dreams, the ones he blames his hormones and his instinct to overcompensate the destruction of everything human around him with something good. 

He is not ashamed of the content itself — on the contrary, it’s a blissful reward after a terrible day. Having uncomfortable dreams about the man he then considers dead, who he doesn't kill but doesn't contribute to saving either, is what he finds a bit squeamish. 

They are always dark -- so unlike the wet dreams he’s had before -- and wordless. With the sure hands on his bare skin and they don't belong to a woman.

He’s grabbed by the hips and turned over, on his hands and knees — and he goes, oh god how willingly he goes. The sheets are crispy under his hands, and he feels warm, he feels loved. The man digs his face into the back of his neck — Gibson’s face, he knows, even though he barely remembers it as a whole — and Tommy wakes up in a jolt, surrounded by screams and explosions and scrambles for his rifle while simultaneously trying to adjust himself in his uniform. 

* * * 

He finds himself in the middle of the dream that very night, both surprised and comforted by the familiarity of it. He is half awake and it’s the sheets, realistically worn and peppered with crumbles because Tommy is a bloody pig and Gibson doesn’t mind that, that make him realise he is not sleeping. 

Gibson nuzzles and touches and squeezes him all over, coming at him like a wave, salty on Tommy's tongue, smooth under his palms.

His raspy breathing is loud in Tommy's ear, a substitute for all the words he's used to hearing, roaring, crashing against his eardrums. 

He hums sleepily, and for the shortest time, he is truly content and warm, curling against the familiar body, trying to drag them both back into the dreamless slumber. 

Then the bad aftertaste of the few recent days catches up with him, and his eyes snap open, staring into the semi-transparent darkness of the early morning. The tremor in Gibson's fingers registers then, and the way the bloody crust on his lip scratches against Tommy's skin. 

"Darling, don't..." Tommy presses open palms against Gibson's face to steady him. Then he realizes he's covering the man's mouth now, and this is the last thing he should be doing -- getting in the way of the words if they should come. 

Only the hot air is leaving his lover's mouth as he nuzzles Tommy's trembling hands, so hot it burns. 

"That's alright; we'll take it slow."

Gibson doesn't let him punch the bedside lights on catching his hand, pulling it back. It's against the younger man's every instinct, but there is urgency in Gibson's every move, so he gives up and just lets it carry them both.

He jerks himself off rapidly just to get it out of the way even before Gibson slides inside him, but the man's fingers are capable, too. They press in all the right places, and Tommy's hips move with them until he is done. 

Then Gibson covers him and makes him move to a different rhythm altogether. 

Tommy's chest hurts throughout, the searing pain spreading from the center of it to his armpits. It's so intense for a sympathetic echo that he digs his fingers into the sheets, bracing himself, and lets it gnaw on his flesh.

He finds himself inside the prison Gibson's been locked into by his guilt which is, in turn, inside the other one he was thrown into by the enemy. The feeling of isolation is so intense he starts to weep just to get its poisonous essence out of his system.

He curses the man on the street for bringing it back; then himself for never being enough to fight it off and he is so overwhelmed by the breathless gasps he doesn't even notice Gibson has stopped moving until there is a hot chapped mouth pressing against his chest. Right where the pain is because Gibson knows where to look for it, the reflection of his own as it is. 

The warm kisses spread on his skin, blossoming until the ache turns into burning sensation and then only the warmth and the wetness of the man's own tears remain, and Tommy is finally able to take a deep breath. It feels like it's his first deep breath in years. 

Gibson moves up, presses their cheeks together instead of a proper, long kiss and moves to pull out.

"Wait, where..." Tommy grabs him by the shoulders immediately, shuddering with the cold as their bellies separate.

Gibson gestures at his face in explanation and Tommy scoffs because honestly, it's not the first time he has been overwhelmed and restored to hysterics when they fuck. It's not the tenth or twentieth time either, although, granted, it's been a few years since they had a good old snotty cry together, in bed or otherwise. But it's like riding a bike, comes back so naturally for them both. 

"When was the last time you've seen your face, good sir?"

As the room gets lighter and lighter around them, all the new contrast colours on Gibson's face become more and more apparent. 

Tommy trails the bruise under his lip where it curls and disappears under the jaw -- a fine jab here -- dark blue with some red spiked in. 

"Come inside me," he whispers against Gibson's ear. His voice is rough from crying and the first signs of the terrible hangover he is about to experience, and it does him a good favour of sounding somewhat seductive. "I'll take it."

He does. Gibson gets into a shallow rhythm -- and Tommy's body trembles with anticipation, hips following each move in and out. He is too exhausted to get hard again, but it's good just like that. It helps him concentrate on how the slow drag of the cock inside him makes his toes curl and his back arch. 

"He has me," Tommy thinks just like he did the first time Gibson ever made love to him, years ago. The thought makes him gasp, curling his arms around Gibson's shoulders and when the older man comes without a sound, hot and sticky inside of him, Tommy knows that he has him back, too, no matter what. 

* * * 

"Tell them you got jumped," Tommy suggests in a few hours as he lies on the bed with a rolled up wet towel on his forehead, gathering all of his remaining strength to get up. 

Gibson fixes his coat in front of the mirror like adjusting the collar will make him look even remotely presentable. He has an office job now, and a sob story about the brain injury that Alex comes up with to explain the irregular speech but the latter won't account for the explosion of colors on the man's face, now with some yellow tones just around the edges. 

Gibson comes over and takes the towel to refresh it. He places it back, and as the cold water drips down Tommy's temples, he whispers:

"Come straight home tonight, alright?"

Gibson points at his own face in all of its brutal glory making Tommy giggle. 

"Yes, you've won your war. Just come home."

Gibson's throat clicks, barely audible, and Tommy freezes for a second, waiting, but the older man takes his hand and brings it to his mouth, brushing softly against the palm and the back, soundless, and that is enough for now, that'll have to be. 

* * * 

Gibson says "good morning" the next day, quieter than his usual voice, but without a hitch, making Tommy jump and spill the sizzling hot tea on his hand. He swallows the yelp not to spook him and hides the reddened limb behind his back when he comes up to kiss the top of the man's head. 

"Good morning to you, too, darling," he whispers, plastering himself against the man's back and they just stand like this in the middle of the kitchen, rocking a little.


End file.
